Navigating Grief and Growth in 2024
Navigating Grief and Growth in 2024
What a wild ride 2024 has been! I quit my job in 99% confidence and 1% sheer terror to write, speak, and coach full time, and the Universe responded with an added opportunity! My own podcast–with a woman I absolutely adore and easily could call my dear friend after our initial meeting.
I was actually supposed to leave an event an hour before she arrived, but I found myself networking and chatting with other incredibly powerful and talented business women in our community. She walked in and sat down at a table in the corner. Immediately I was drawn to her, as if I’d always known her. So much for leaving!
I schlepped my laptop, books and purse over to her table and intruded on the conversation already happening around me. As I sat, I introduced myself and complimented my new friend’s piercing blue eyes. That was all it took to strike up a conversation about all the things, from eye color to the things we like about ourselves to our passion and vision for our futures and our careers– and then it hit me.
“wait, are you Blythe DONOVAN? I know that name–I have been wanting to meet you!”
“Is your last name MOROZ? I have been told by several people we need to collaborate!”
And then it began. The wildest twists and turns of my self-employed roller coaster so far. Not a month later, we were recording our first podcast episodes, vision casting, dreaming, and planning. We still write, speak, and venture out on our own, but we’ve both enjoyed so much having a “running partner” in a collaboration as large and powerful as this one! “In Joy the Show” aims to be conversational, witty, wise, and casual. It checks all those boxes and more for me as I gained not only a platform, but a lifetime friendship.
On another high note, my 3rd in the series, “Me, Myself & One Month” didn’t quite make it into the 2024 timeline, but I gave myself a lot of grace–these things take time! I can be grateful for publishing and launching the first two journals in 2024 and will look forward to 2025 (and beyond) for the next 10! I’ve spoken to audiences on both topics of Self-Love and Boundaries, and before Envision is even out yet, I’ll be speaking to a group in January! Of course I’ll have both books on hand in case the audience wants to get a jump start on those two first!
On a personal note, looking at 2024 is not all surprises, daisies, accomplishments and rainbows. There was a shadow of sadness cast over the months from March on, as we lost my beloved mother in law, Janie. Completely unexpected and tragic, we have trudged through even our happiest moments this year overwhelmed with grief. She missed Easter, our younger daughter Trinity’s graduation, sending her to college, bid day for her sorority, and her first day of college. She missed our older daughter’s return to her 3rd year in her college and community, her career choices, the bright future she is planning for herself. Janie just wasn’t there. It was a rough one. But since I choose joy, I believe in some small way she was there, and she is still with us. Just as we did with her husband and my father in law, Dick, in 2012; and just as I did with my own dad in 2017, too, I leave her in the year she died. I carry each of them with me in my heart and happiest memories into the new year.
I know I’m not alone when I grieve my family and friends we have lost along the way. It is a testament to their goodness, that you’re grieving so much for them. And it is a testament to your strength and courage to keep going when you pick up the pieces and allow yourself to move through the days.
My challenge this month is to find a way to care for yourself as you grieve whatever loss you had in 2024. That could be a job, an election, a position, a baby, a friendship, an opportunity, a family member… hold space in the loss and be gentle with yourself in January.
